What is easiest? wine, mead or beer?

Northern Brewer General
21

more like stale caramel, like when you buy a old ipa at a gas station that very unplesant caramel stale taste, not good caramel you would get from fresh beer that used caramel malts

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22

Do you have good carbonation even though it tastes wonky?
Sneezles61

23

no not yet

24

anyway thank you all very much for helping, i have ingredients for 2 more batches and i believe will be my final brew days but hey i was persistent for 15 years, its just not for me move on in life cheers
edit 16 years lol

25

What type of beers do you brew?
Your own recipes or kits?
Admittedly, IPAs can be somewhat more difficult to brew, especially if bottling, because of the hops and the extra steps.

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26

i brew mostly german pilsner, belgians like bgsa and tripel and stouts, i dont like IPA really so dont brew them, i have before just not my style of beer to drink

27

Hmm, perplexing. Do other people like your beer?

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28

i would only share beer if i feel its good so in other words other people never get to try it lol

29

One thing I don’t see asked- are you extract brewing or all grain?
Edit: let’s see if we can help before you just hang it up.

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30

Also, just saw your other thread on lambics. What are you fermenting in? Are you keeping equipment, especially your ‘sorts’ separate?

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31

i brew all grain, i truly appreciate you all for being helpful and chiming in, yeah i was thinking about giving up but i drank a really nice store bought pilsner and my journey is not over, i went this long and it would be a sin not to drive this into the dirt ,funny you brought up the lambic cause thats one style so far that seems to turn out well for the most part and yes i have dedicated carboy for the lambic

32

im thinking oxidation. your filling a 5 gallon keg with only 2 plus gallons thats alot of head space to purge. Then you bottle that from the keg into bottles more chance to see O2. Do you ever just bottle condition and forgo the keg?

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33

i use the keg as a fermenter and always bottle condition, i use the beergun to purge and fill bottles with flat beer and carb drops to prime

34

Was asking about previous batches carbonation… Yeast need O2 to do their job… I still go back to a lack of it at bottling time…
I’ll sit in the corner now and listen to others that have way more knowledge than I. (:
Sneezles61

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35

The pilsner can be challenging especially when bottle conditioning. Any yeast in solution is going to taste like crap.

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36

Sorry ‘sorts’ should be ‘softs.’ Maybe too much to drink :joy:
Although you have a separate carboy you really need to watch anything soft like tubing, siphons etc. It can be hard to completely clean and sanitize these items.
You’re doing AG so how are you monitoring pH?

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37

Yes AG and i use a bluelab ph meter

38

@mattbrew83 How are you chilling your wort?
Mash temps, single infusion or step?

This is a head scratcher. Your procedures sound solid.

Also, when I brew 20 gallon batches and sometimes end up a little short filling the fourth keg. I swap the QD on my CO2 tank to a liquid and blow the gas down the dip tube and pull the pressure release to purge air. So far I have not detected any difference between the “short” keg and full ones.

EDIT: To answer your original question, I think mead would be the easiest. It can be as simple as warm water, honey and yeast.

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39

I know, right? That was his original question. I saw it more as a cry for help. He absolutely sounds like he’s doing everything right, (hell, even I don’t check pH) however, 90% of his beers aren’t good…… according to him. I would suggest going all the way back to scratch, very basic equipment, and extract kits, and just getting a few beers in the pipeline and some confidence. Maybe, 3 gallon extract……
In my first year of brewing, extract brews, one of my neighbors called me The Alchemist, lol, I had to tell him that that title was already taken! :joy::joy::joy:
(he probably just wanted the free beer)

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40

absolutely a cry for help lol, i just can figure out what im doing wrong, as some of you mentioned that my process seems sound and i thought same thing thats whats driving me crazy, anyway i really want to thank you all and yes i agree just strip everything down to basics, no water adjustments and the more fine tuning stuff

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